by Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE March 6, 2023
Pictured: Shtayyeh speaks at the 36th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa on February 18, 2023. (Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images)
- The bill basically states that an Israeli citizen or resident who commits a terrorist act and agrees to receive payment for it from the Palestinian Authority is thereby stating a preference to receive benefits from the Palestinian Authority over those of the State of Israel. When the terrorist completes his prison sentence, he will then move to the place of his chosen alliance, the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Needless to say, this also means that re-entry into Israel is prohibited.
- [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh] is… saying that Israel has no right to defend itself or take any measures against Palestinians involved in terrorism, who are then financially rewarded by his own Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
- Paying for murder in lieu of negotiating is not what the Palestinians committed to in the Oslo Accords or any other agreement.
- Would-be terrorists can now contemplate that choice [whether to commit murder or stay in Israel], unlike the victims of terror who will never get to “visit family” again.
- In the view of the Palestinian leadership, if Palestinians murder innocent civilians simply because they are Jews, that is not racist or unlawful, but if Israelis hold those murderers responsible and imprison them, that is racist and unlawful.
- [Shtayyeh] apparently wants to make sure that while he continues to fund the families of the terrorists in the West Bank, the Arab terrorists in Israel will be able to maintain their citizenship, live a pleasant life inside Israel and be able to continue murdering Jews.
- In Lebanon, Palestinians, with rare exceptions, are not permitted citizenship, period.
- The intriguing thing is that Palestinian officials who are upset by this bill seem extremely worried about “Palestinian rights to citizenship,” but only in Israel — not in Lebanon or Jordan.
- What these Palestinian leaders are worried about are the rights of terrorists — far more than they worry about the living standards or economic hardship that millions of their people face in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The motivation, sadly, seems to be shoring up their own political power at the expense of their people.
- They seem concerned about “Palestinian rights” only when it can involve delegitimizing Israel.
- The Biden Administration and the European Union, meanwhile, continue to provide political and financial support to the Palestinian Authority without demanding an end to Abbas’s “pay-for-slay” “jobs program” that incentivizes and rewards the murder of Jews, or the ongoing campaign to defend the “rights of terrorists.”
- By their silence, the Biden Administration and the European Union are sending a message to the Palestinians that it is perfectly all right to finance terrorism and murder Jews.
A new bill that is moving swiftly through initial rounds in the Israeli parliament is garnering harsh criticism from the Palestinian leadership. The bill basically states that an Israeli citizen or resident who commits a terrorist act and agrees to receive payment for it from the Palestinian Authority is thereby stating a preference to receive benefits from the Palestinian Authority over those of the State of Israel. When the terrorist completes his prison sentence, he will then move to the place of his chosen alliance, the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Needless to say, this also means that re-entry into Israel is prohibited.
Sounds fair enough. Not, however, to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab Based in the Middle East.
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